REALME 9i 5G

 CONTENTS

1. OVERVIEW

2. DESIGN/BUILD QUALITY

3. SPECIFICATION

4. DISPLAY/PERFORMANCE

5. CAMERA/BATTERY

6. UI/FEATURES

7. PRICE/COLOURS AVAILABLE

8. CONCLUSION(DON'T MISS)

1. OVERVIEW

The box contains the smartphone right upfront, a 18 watt charging brick, a typeA - typeC data cable, a transparent TPU case which is of decent quality and snugly fits to the phone and some documentations in a yellow envelope(typical Realme unboxing). That's it.

2. DESIGN/BUILD QUALITY

The first look and in-hand feel of the phone is superb and one of it's key highlighting feature also. Realme has given the name "Vintage CD Design" because the back really looks shiny and sparkling just like old time disks, although the back side is made of polycarbonate but give a metal feel. The camera frame has been removed and only the sensors are bulging out. With a thickness of 8.1mm the comes with the trending boxy style frame made of polycarbonate as well and weighs around 187 grams. Dual SIM support is given with dedicated SD card slot. A side mounted fingerprint sensor along with 3.5 mm headphone jack is given. In total the hand's on feel is good and definitely feels premium.

3. SPECIFICATION

The phone comes in 2 variants 4/64GB variant and 6/128GB variant having LPDDR 4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage type. It has the Mediatek Dimensity 810 5G processor(6nm based) which has good power efficiency.

4. DISPLAY/PERFORMANCE

The phone comes with a 6.6 inch FHD+ IPS level display having 90Hz refresh rate, and 400 nits brightness. A waterdrop notch is given which feels quite outdated considering the price point and current time. Screen resolution is 1080 x 2408 pixels and 20:9 aspect ratio. A punch hole and a

Super Amoled was expected. 

Talking about performance, this phone comes with Mediatek Dimensity 810. It's a 6nm based processor bundled with Mali-G57 GPU. Major amount of Realme

smartphones comes with this chipset. Overall decent and stable performance giving an antutu benchmark of approximately 3,80,000. This competes with SD 695 and it's

a capable 5G chipset. Games like PUBG NEW STATE can be played at low to medium settings.

5. CAMERA/BATTERY

 Realme has given here a triple rear camera setup including a 50MP(f1.8) primary sensor, a portrait and a 2MP(f2.4) Macro sensor and 8MP front selfie cameras given. However Ultra-wide sensor is missing which Realme is not providing for quite a long time in their budget phones. In terms of

picture quality they are decent giving good amount of saturation and detailing in their images. Colour and contrast quality is also justified in this price. It shoots video at 1080p at 30FPS.

In terms of battery life it's good having a 5000mAH battery which gives almost a whole day screen time. It's bundled with a 18watt fast charger which fully charges the phone from zero in 1.5 hrs.

6. UI/FEATURES

The phone comes with Realme UI 3.0 and android version 12 out of the box. Latest sequrity patch is given. A lot of bloatware and third-party apps are present on the phone which can easily be uninstalled but definitely destroys the clean experience. In terms of band support the phone gets 7 5G

bands including all the major bands coming to India. Single bottom firing speakers are given in the bottom portion which is loud enough and gives decent experience. Widevine L1 support is given so steaming videos from Amazon and Netflix will not be an issue. All the major sensors are present including a side mounted fingerprint. Haptic feedback is average.

7. PRICE/COLOURS AVAILABLE

PRICING-    4/64GB variant - Rs. 14,999  and  6/128GB variant - 16,999

COLOURS-      Metallica Gold, Rocking Black, Soulful Blue

8. CONCLUSION

According to me this smartphone is only limited to those kind of customers who only wants a 5G(future proof) phone and wants to keep themselves updated. Look I am telling this because with a mindset of launching a 5G smartphone under Rs. 15,000 Realme has done a lot of cost cutting in this device

which are all clearly visible. Namely the waterdrop notch design looks outdated now, the IPS display which could have been replaced by a S-Amoled display, the Ultra-wide angle lens is missing, a glass back could have been given, and lastly a fast charger of higher wattage could have been given by Realme instead of that 18 watt charger, and also the funky looking back design will not be accepted by the majority customers. Rather a more minimalistic design language was more preferable. So yes, if you prefer a 4G smartphone a lot of above features will be available to you under Rs. 15,000. Realme did a great job by giving a 5G smartphone in this price having all the major band support but on the other hand did a lot of cost cutting.